Stars are aligned over Paris!
In a previous post “Vive la France”, I described the environment in which we launched Techstars Paris on March 20th 2017.
This post is about what happen since.
There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in France.
Late July, CB Insights, released some nice infographics about the financing trends in France, and they look good!
At the end of Q2 17, 355 French tech companies have raised as much in one semester as they rose in all year 2016!! The full-year projection for 2017: $4,100M, is almost 2X 2016: $2,144M...
For the fist time in 9 months, France has taken the second seat in Europe after UK and before Germany in terms of dollar funding for tech companies. A short list of deals, including OVH $450M or Data4 Goup $280M, have driven those numbers up.
Over all investors bpi france largely dominates the market with 20 deals in Q2 only… Investing French people’s money into tehnology, showing confidence in the market and technologies.
But what drives this trend in funding?
Obviously, the quality of the French tech scene; where the technical level of research and the quality of training in engineering and business school fuels great innovation. But there is more.
There is a warm wind of optimism that creates better conditions for success.
It all started in May, with the election of President Emmanuel Macron, and unfolded in 3 acts.
“France is back!” Edouard Philippe, French Prime Minister
In less than 8 weeks, the French political landscape has changed for ever, bringing the civil society, diversity and more women to the Parliament.
What French people grew up with, being told “it will never change”, has been uber-ised by a party that didn’t exist early 2016! Sounds familiar?
The election of President Emmanuel Macron in France, came has a breath of fresh air, after UK voting for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the US. With his idea “Make our planet great again”, Emmanuel Macron is not only playing with the American President, he is also creating the conditions for innovators, researchers, tinkers, doers and makers to harbor in France to innovate.
“With great power, come great responsibilities!” Ben Parker.
One thing President Macron is responsible for is inspiring confidence to French entrepreneurs from all origins, confidence to entrepreneurs all over the world who see in France a land of freedom to establish and succeed with technology.
The renewed support of the actual government to la French Tech, the program initiated by Fleur Pellerin and Axelle Lemaire, and the expansion of its actions such as the French Tech Ticket and the French Tech Visa are great opportunities for founders worldwide to look into the opportunity of starting a tech company in France.
For the first time, I voted for a candidate who is younger than me… I expected that to happen a lot later in my life!
Attached to the Prime Minister office is Mounir Mahjoubi, as Secretary of State for Digital Affairs. Mounir Mahjoubi was the CTO of Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for President. He is France’s French Digital Counsil former President and an entrepreneur. At 33 years old only, he knows the tech scene and the mindset that drives founders.
Viva Technology
A few weeks after the President election, for it’s second edition, over 68,000 visitors attended Viva Technology in Paris mid June. They met with 6,000 startups, 1,500 investors and thousands of executives from around the world. 500 speakers with names like Eric Schmidt, Isabelle Kocher and myself shared their vision on the impact of digital on the world’s economies and societies.
In just 2 years VivaTech has become the place to go in France for everyone in the tech industry. Powered by economic newspaper Les Echos and communication giant Publicis Groupe, all major French corporate companies hosted startups on their booths, along with Google or Facebook.
Of course, President Macron put tome heat to the crowd there! But it was remarquable to see the diversity of the panels, the quality of the presentations and the optimistic atmosphere.
Also, if you are not in Consumer Electronics, there is no point to go to CES anymore if you are a French startup, save your money and go to VivaTech. It’ll only get better if you go too.
World’s biggest startup campus
Another milestone on the road to make France a “startup nation”, late June, opened Station F in the South East part of Paris in a former train station, all a startup ecosystem under one roof:
34,000 sq meters
3000+ desks in the startup zone
26 international startup programs
1 makerspace
1 restaurant, 4 kitchens, 1 café, 1 bar
24/7 access
8 event spaces
1 rooftop tennis court (just kidding)
Of course, Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the place, with French tech super star Xavier Niel, founder of Free Telecom and whom carried the vision for Station F.
After a few years of work, it is another magnet to attract worldwide talents to Paris. The list of partners is impressive, and the level of expectations really high.
We visited a few weeks ago and it’s beautiful, can’t wait to see it at full capacity in the coming months. Congratulations Roxanne Varza and team!
See what the NYT had to say about it.
Meanwhile at Techstars Paris
On March 20th, with our corporate partners Air Liquide, FDJ, Groupama, Renault Group and RCI Bank & Services and Total we launched Techstars Paris at Partech Shaker and opened applications for the class of 2017.
In the last 6 months, a lot of things happened :
- Recruiting candidates in MeetUps, AMAs, Office Hours and events, in France, in Europe, and in the rest of the world,
- Recruiting mentors for the program in my Rollodex, in meetings and events, and at our partners,
- Recruiting a team for Techstars Paris; Queta Lizardi has joined me from Mexico in June, early September 2 more people will join us and 4 extra Associates,
- Building the office. We took two floors of the Partech Shaker down, and built them up new to Techstars standards,
- Techstars Paris, like any other Techstars program is 13 weeks of one on one and group meetings, workshops, events and surprises; Queta and I have been planning this over the summer,
We have selected 10 awesome startups from all over the world to join us at Techstars Paris. We will announce who they are, and what they do on the opening of the program on September 11, 2017.
We can’t wait to get this program started. More coming soon.
